Am I living in La-La land?

I have lost ALOT of weight and have thus far NOT started strength training consistantly. (Dumb I know!) I am working on it.

ok...so on to my question...I have the classic apple shape with lots of curves..where I carry most of my weight in my mid section. BUT..I have no butt. Thanks to genes. I purchased a weight machine called The Butt Blaster years ago...to the tune of $600.00. It is a very high quality piece of equipment. You basicly kneel, gripping handles in front of you..and do resistance leg air lifts. It comes with several weight disk.

Am I just dreaming that IF I use this machine consistantly....Can I actually build up my glutomous maximus?? or BUTT?

So im pretty much the same shape as you and have the same problem. Gaining muscle in your butt i suppose would make it a little bigger, but i dont think its gunna give you that big round bottom. Good luck

I have the same apple thing going on. About 11 years ago I was super fit// and eating disordered- sorta -- and was doing the firm videos. One of the exercises involved a 2x4 under my heels and knee bends while lifting hand weights. I actually did develop a round bump back there. My boyfriend at the time commented on the cute junk in my truck-- and I was 115 pounds.

You can certainly build up your bum but I hate to say it, you don't need a fancy piece of equipment. I would agree that The Firm series does seem to emphasis a lot of bum work.

Overall, squats and lunges can help build your bum. You can make a difference. I wouldn't rely on any single piece of equipment though but it can give you a workout I'm sure. If you did do it, I'd look into bodyweight leg exercises as well such as lunges and squats.

I used to get teased about backing into a fan when I was in high school. But I have to agree with Nelie, squats and lunges do wonders for the booty. You won't get the Beyonce butt, but you can build up enough to fill out your jeans.

Step ups work.
Also, hamstring bridges.
It depends on how your muscles respond to the exercise whether they will get bigger or not (and how much effort you exert). They will most definately get firmer---if you are consistent and keep it up. Once you stop doing the exercises, the firmness is quickly lost. That's my experience at least. You should pick something that you enjoy and can stick with for a lifetime.

The butt blaster will help. My gym has one and my personal trainer definitely thinks it's a worthwhile machine to use. He doesn't have me use it every workout, but we use it occasionally. I think it can be a worthwhile part of your butt workout.

But I agree with Nelie and others that you also want to be doing squats and lunges; those types of exercise are definitely my trainer's #1 choice for toning and increasing my lower body strength, including improving the shape of my butt. He has me do squats or lunges or both during just about every workout (I never imagined how many different variations there are of both). Even if we're doing upper body, he probably still sneaks in a few squats or lunges. He also has me do a fair amount of step ups (and lots and lots of jumping--longs jumps are his favorite, we do those almost every workout). We used to do a lot of bridge stuff, but not so much anymore.

I don't know anything about the Butt Blaster, but I will say that doing the same thing over and over and over again for a long period of time will eventually cause your body to get into a rut. At that point you not only won't see any progress, you might slide back a little.

I wouldn't say *don't* use the machine you've got, but I would say don't rely on it exclusively. As others have suggested, mix in lunges, squats, stepups, stair climbing, etc. ... anything to keep the muscles guessing.

Thanks for the great suggestions ladies! I also thought that lunges and squats would TONE your butt well...but I actually NEED to BUILD some muscle, I was NOT gifted at all in that area. My machine goes up to 70 lbs.

There's really no such thing as tone: you're either building muscle or you're not. Once you get to the stage that bodyweight squats and lunges are easy, then you start adding weight - either a bar or dumbells or whatever.

But if you haven't done squats and lunges before (or if it's been a while), start with bodyweight. I think you'll be veryveryvery surprised at what a difference it makes - and how much you'll feel it the next day.
.